Whether it’s regulatory compliance, patent lawsuits, or copyright challenges, the online video industry sees its share of legal and government issues. We’ll keep you up to date here with the latest news.

Blockchain's distributed ledger offers new opportunities for combatting privacy, securing financial transactions, and finding new approaches to monetization and royalty payment. This presentation from Streaming Media East offered a high-level view of the possibilities for the video industry.

It's time for Streaming Media readers to submit your nominations for the best products and services in 32 categories from cameras to webcasting solutions—including a new category for OTT platform for MSO and MVPD

Last week, HEVC Advance announced it is forming a new patent pool in addition to the one offered by MPEG LA. While the new group—which will likely include Dolby, GE, Mitsubishi Electric, Philips, and Technicolor—did not announce licensing terms, past precedent indicates that the royalties won't likely be onerous for most encoding and decoding vendors, though how it will affect content publishers is less clear.

The original Communictions Act never foresaw the convergence of content, communication, and connectivity in the internet. The time has come to update it so that it encourages competition and innovation in today's world.

Patent pool organization MPEG LA continues to come under fire from the likes of Steve Forbes, but most of the criticism is based on false premises and ignores innovators' right to generate revenue from their work and investments